The present invention relates to Internet network carrier billing devices, and more particularly to billing methods and systems that can operate at the extreme speeds and volumes provided by dense wave-division multiplexing optical backbones.
Up until very recently, data traffic volumes were relatively small compared to voice. In 1995, the highest-speed Internet backbone links operated at speeds of 155 million bits-per-second (Mbps). Even in 1997, the highest speed was 622 Mbps. Backbone link speeds for other data services, e.g., Frame Relay, have typically been less. To make more efficient use of optical fiber data capacities, time-division multiplexing (TDM) has been used that combines the Internet backbones with voice-call trunks. However, the increased carrier speeds have created a dilemma in designing billing devices that don""t become network bottlenecks.
The current voice-communication infrastructure is a TDM and circuit-switching network for 64-kbps voice circuits. Such TDM part of the network includes digital cross-connects and synchronous optical network/synchronous digital hierarchy (SONET/SDH) network elements. Thousands of voice circuits are combined by a multiplexer to fully utilize the high-speed fiber optic transmission facilities. Currently, such optical fibers typically operate at 155 Mbps to 2.5 gigabits-per-second (Gbps). The higher 2.5 Gbps is more prevalent on long-haul backbone facilities and interoffice or metro areas. New OC-192/STM-64 systems operating at 10.0 Gbps are just now being deployed.
Both long-haul and short-haul computer networks are beginning to see the wide-scale deployment of OC-48 dense wave-division multiplexing (DWDM). Cisco Systems (San Jose, Calif.) has begun building its switches and routers to interface directly to WDM equipment to take advantage of WDM and the emerging optical network layer. Wave-division multiplexing (WDM) technology has emerged as a practical way to increase the capacity of optical fiber. WDM systems carry multiple channels of information, each operating at up to 2.5 Gbps, or even 10.0 Gbps, by using different wavelengths in the infrared light spectrum (near 1550 nm). To date, WDM systems have been designed primarily for point-to-point connectivity over long distances and have been widely deployed by interexchange carriers in the U.S. and other long-haul applications. New WDM systems are now appearing that are optimized for interoffice or metropolitan applications and that support more flexible topologies. Continuing advances in optical technologies are giving rise to an optical network layer that will be capable of routing wavelengths over complex networks and providing xe2x80x9clightpathsxe2x80x9d to client layers above.
First-generation WDM systems supported only four to sixteen wavelengths, each operating at 2.5 Gbps. Second-generation systems now being deployed support thirty-two to forty wavelengths, and products have been promised that will support as many as one hundred wavelengths. Experimental systems have already demonstrated as much as one terabit (100 10-Gbps channels) transmitted on a single fiber. TDM rates are not keeping pace with data traffic growth. Only data devices that can access the enormous capacities made possible by WDM will be capable of meeting this demand.
High-speed switch and router interfaces are needed that provide cost-effective interconnection with optical network elements and that are able to efficiently use the capacity provided by each WDM wavelength, e.g., big fat pipes (BFPs). The OC-48 c (2.5-Gbps) interface for Cisco""s 12000 gigabit switch router has an OC-48 c clear channel interface delivered on a data platform. Such allows for the most efficient transport of data for backbone applications, providing significant bandwidth gain through statistical multiplexing compared with the OC-12 solutions currently delivered via TDM. BFPs significantly reduce the complexity and management of the network by eliminating the need for TDM capabilities in the backbone hierarchy of the transport infrastructure. Higher-speed BFPs will be delivered in the future to take advantage of increases in WDM channel capacities and densities.
Wide-area computer data traffic continues to expand exponentially. In response, we are seeing the emergence of the optical Internet, a new data-optimized service infrastructure that will become the foundation for these data services. High-speed internetworking devices and optical networking technologies will provide this foundation. Connecting internetworking devices directly with optical technologies will enable service providers to deliver data services at dramatically reduced costs. By directing capital expenditures toward a data-optimized infrastructure rather than a legacy voice/circuit switched infrastructure, service providers can ensure their competitiveness in the new network landscape beyond the year 2000.
There appears to be no end to the explosive growth of data traffic. The Web-driven growth trends of recent years will be followed by successive waves of demand resulting from voice over IP/ATm/Frame Relay, video, and high-speed subscriber access via digital subscriber lines and cable. The adoption of intranets and extranets for networked commerce will bring further changes to the IP-service infrastructure, both through bandwidth demands and feature requirements. Service providers know that their future lies in data, which is expected to account for the majority of the traffic volume on the networks and bring most of the lucrative new service opportunities in the coming years. According to one industry analyst, in the future, eighty percent of service providers"" profits will be derived from data services.
Profitability for service providers depends on increasing service revenue and decreasing delivery costs. The revenue side of this equation depends on the ability to move up the value chain and deliver value-added services that are attractive to businesses and consumers. The Cisco IOS(copyright) software provides the foundation for the delivery of high value-added, end-to-end services that can be delivered over a broad set of technologies.
The total investment in the public service infrastructure today in North America alone is estimated at roughly one quarter of a trillion dollars. This investment has primarily been made to address the requirements of voice services, which in North America represent about $150 billion annually.
While investments in voice/TDM infrastructure are enormous, intense competition in the voice market brought about by deregulation has led most observers to expect low margins on voice traffic in the coming years. This fact combined with enormous opportunities in data creates a strong motivation to limit future expenditures in legacy voice/TDM equipment and focus investments in the data arena. The role of SONET/SDH in the future remains important as the transition from TDM to optical internetworking takes place. Important key aspects such as performance management, fault isolation, and protection will need to be carried forward into the optical internet architecture.
While data traffic volumes are still relatively small compared to voice, they are increasing dramatically. Leading Internet providers report bandwidths doubling on their backbones approximately every six to nine months. In 1998, the largest Internet backbone providers will deploy 2.5-Gbp links between routers. Data volumes are now capable of consuming entire optical fibers operating at the prevalent speed of 2.5 Gbps. It is therefore neither necessary, nor possible, to continue using SONET/SDH equipment to multiplex high-speed data links with other traffic. In optical internets, high-performance internetworking devices (switches and routers) are interconnected via optical networking technologies. They may be directly connected with optical fiber, or they may be connected to an optical network layer that provides wavelength routing for various clients including internetworking devices and SONET/SDH network elements. In either case, the switches or routers use the full capacity provided by the fiber or wavelengths to statistically multiplex packets or cells, allowing efficient use of data capacity.
Optical internetworking eliminates the need for a TDM hierarchy for data services, replacing it with the statistical multiplexing of packets/cells and enabling other SONET/SDH functions to be moved into the data equipment. Equipment costs are reduced, because separate SONET/SDH devices for TDM multiplexing are no longer required between the switching/routing and optical layers. The network is generally simplified by a reduction in the number of separate physical devices. Finally, the network is freed from the speed and capacity limitations of TDM and its DSO-based hierarchy.
These elements will be delivered through a strategy that leads from today""s SONET/SDH infrastructure ultimately to extend the optical internetworking model all the way to the customer premise. Optical internetworking strategy is provided by scalable and reliable data platforms with the capacity to exploit the bandwidths available at the optical layer. Cisco has delivered SONET/SDH-compatible optical interfaces on a range of switching and routing platforms. They pioneered Packet-over-SONET/SDH (POS) technology for the delivery of IP services directly over SONET/SDH circuits.
The 1997 acquisition of Skystone Systems in Ottawa, Canada, provided Cisco with core competencies and a center of excellence for SONET/SDH-based management and low-cost, data-oriented optical solutions, as well as high-speed SONET/SDH networking.
The integration of optical networking capabilities within switches and routers will enable switches and routers to interface directly to fiber in situations where additional optical network layer elements are not required or justified. This includes long-reach optics and other products that extend the distances over which switches and routers can be interconnected.
Early efforts focused primarily on the network backbone where data volumes already demanded optical capacities. Future efforts need to extend a similar architecture to interoffice and metropolitan parts of the network. As data volumes increase, and the cost of optical technologies decrease, optical internetworking will become the preferred architecture. Data-optimized ring solutions that do not need the fine granularity of TDM will be used to maximize the bandwidth efficiency. This while still providing the same levels of performance monitoring, restoration, and reliability seen in SONET/SDH-based ring architectures.
Routers and switches will be pushed farther out into the edge points of the network, creating a much more distributed and more scalable set of intelligent network elements, compared to the current TDM infrastructure. A significant amount of the metropolitan data traffic is now being backhauled with TDM to a small number of data-oriented points of presence (POP""s). The net result of such change will be to dramatically reduce the overall complexity and simplify management of metropolitan-based networks. Creating an all-optical internet from central office through the interexchange network to another central office without the need for legacy TDM capabilities.
With an optical internetworking fabric in place all the way to the central office, the next step will be to provide optical internetworking solutions all the way to the customer premise. At this point, there will no need for TDM within the data network, and the common access speed will not be DS0, T1/E1, or T3/E3, but instead, a data-oriented interface such as ETHERNET. These solutions will take the form of low-cost CPE devices with optical integration with LAN interfaces facing the customer. Further integrated into this solution will be other access technologies such as xDSL or data over cable for last-mile delivery where fiber to the premise/or home is not possible or required.
With the solutions outlined above, we will be able to offer service providers the ability to provide ETHERNET bandwidth (10 Mbps) capability to their customers at the equivalent cost of providing POTS (64 K) services today.
The optical network layer itself is relatively new. In the next few years, optical add/drop multiplexers, optical cross-connects, and other types of network elements will become commonplace. The ITU and other standards bodies are actively defining the standards that will ensure interoperability within the optical network layer.
Optical internetworking also raises many issues and will require standardization to avoid a proliferation of vendor-specific approaches, particularly between the switching and optical layers. But given the pressing need for IP capacity, deployment is likely to proceed rapidly. Some of the issues that require attention include optical interfaces. As data equipment requires ever-increasing amounts of bandwidth from the optical layer, new optical interfaces will be required. While SONET/SDH-derived optics can meet this need today, multiple wavelengths will ultimately be needed, requiring the specification of a multichannel interface between data and optical layers. Data equipment will need to support more sophisticated optical topologies including meshes and rings. Fast restoration mechanisms are required to provide the resilience available from SONET/SDH today. Data Optimized Add/Drop Multiplexers will be required and should be designed to take advantage of cost reduction possible with a data-oriented architecture.
Cisco and Ciena have joined with other industry leaders ATandT, Bellcore, Hewlett-Packard, Qwest, Sprint, and WorldCom to found the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF). The mission of the OIF is to accelerate the development and deployment of optical internetworking products by fostering industry cooperation and adoption of open specifications. The OIF is not intended to assume the role of national or international standards bodies such as the ITU, ANSI, or IETF, which are already working to standardize the optical internetworking layers. By focusing on key specifications of importance to the rapid deployment of data-oriented optical networks, the OIF will seek to build industry consensus and provide valuable input to the formal standards process.
Internet service providers must find new sources of revenue beyond those generated by flat rate billing to remain competitive. How their customers use new services and network resources needs to be accurately tracked and billed. Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems recently announced the INTERNET USAGE BILLING SOLUTION, which is based on an HP/Cisco xe2x80x9cInternet Usage Platformxe2x80x9d. Internet service providers (ISPs) and telecommunications service providers can thereby offer new IP services to their enterprise customers. The Internet Usage Billing Solution is an integrated bundle that includes the HP/Cisco Internet Usage Platform, Portal Software""s billing application Infranet(copyright), system integration services from HP""s Professional Services Organization, and billing solution integration services from Cap Gemini Telecom and Media.
The HP/Cisco Internet Usage Platform extracts accounting information from strategic points in an IP environment. Cisco NetFlow technology at the router identifies IP packet flows, performs efficient statistics collection, accelerates security filtering, and exports the statistics to downstream collectors. NetFlow provides fine-grained metering for ISPs to bill usage by time, traffic volume, application, source, and destination.
HP""s Smart Internet Usage (SIU) enables accurate aggregation, in near-real time, of customer traffic statistics. Such data is correlated to the critical resources and services used, e.g., IP services, access services, and systems. Information is summarized in an open and extensible format called the Internet data record (IDR), for billing, marketing, and capacity planning applications. The Internet Usage Billing Solution automatically feeds this information to the integrated Portal Infranet rating and billing application.
Portal Software is scalable and adaptable customer management and billing software for ISP""s. Portal""s Infranet software helps to register, manage, and bill individual customers. Infranet is integrated into the Internet Usage Billing Solution, and uses data in the IDR""s. Optical add/drop multiplexers (OADM""s) promise to be a key for a variety of broadband areas, including Internet access, Web hosting and cable television (CATV). Ericsson Network Systems recently announced its Flexing Bus OADM at the National Fiber Optic Engineers Conference (NFOEC) in Orlando. Flexing Bus is a 32-channel ring architecture which was initially released in a 16-channel version. Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc., showed a dynamic, 256-x-256 wavelength-reconfigurable OADM based on acousto-optic tunable filtering (AOTF) at Supercomm ""1998 in Atlanta. Fujitsu""s unit is a fixed 32 Gbpsxc3x9710 Gbps unit included the vendor""s Metro family of products. Siemens Telecom Networks had an OADM it showed as one of several network elements in a high-capacity wave division multiplexing (WDM) system at NFOEC. The TransXpress Infinity OADM is xe2x80x9cmostly opticalxe2x80x9d, and is a 32-channelxc3x9710 Gbps unit with a reach of 600 km. Alcatel markets its 1680-OGM (Optical Gateway Manager), a smaller version of the 1680-OGX (Optical Gateway Cross-connect). The Alcatel 1680-OGM manages the entry points into the backbone optical layer, and works in tandem with the Alcatel 1680-OGX that manages transitions between interconnected optical layer networks. The OGM is placed at intermediate locations between OGX cross-connects for terminating optical layer services, aggregating a mixture of cell-based and synchronous transfer mode (STM)-based services. The OGM can sit across five to ten OC-192 (10 Gbps) rings and provide connectivity to all, while the larger OGX provides connectivity of ten to three hundred rings. The next step is the 1640-OADM, which will provide OADM capacity. The 1640-OADM reportedly will be available within the next twelve months.
NEC America offers an OADM with remote provisioning capability. The programmable OADM can look at any wavelength in a 32- or 64-wavelength environment, and remotely select whether to add or drop a wavelength. The add/drop functionality of NEC""s SpectralWave line will allow all in-line amplifiers in a given WDM section to be upgraded to OADM. The existing in-line amp remains in place, serving as a pre-amp for the OADM. The output of the in-line amp, which was once directed to the next optical path, is now directed to the input of the OADM shelf. This OADM implementation allows the signals to be remotely provisioned using the system""s operations support system (OSS) interfaces. Any of thirty-two wavelengths can be dropped, although the system is limited to eight channels added and/or dropped. OADM ring functionality is planned, according to NEC.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an all-optical method of extracting billing from an optical backbone without creating a network bottleneck.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a network monitor PIN-register collection of IP-packet source-destination linkage information for billing and other management purposes.
Briefly, a billing system embodiment of the present invention comprises an optical system that uses a variable magnification mirror to split-off a sample of the DWDM-carrier through traffic. This sample is then processed through a CISCO 12000 gigabit switch router such that billing information is output that is useful to an optical Internet backbone carrier.
An advantage of the present invention is that the billing function can run in a realtime OC-48 DWDM optical backbone and yet not create a network bottleneck.
Another advantage of the present invention is that a TCP/IP pin-register is provided that can be used by law enforcement agencies to detect and track criminal activities and syndicates that are using the Internet.
More advantages will become apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art upon further review of the following description and illustrated drawings contained herein.